Patrick Holford: what the optimum nutrition approach actually says
If there was a nutrition book in your house any time from the late nineties onwards, there's a fair chance it was one of his. Patrick Holford has written more than 45 books, translated into over 30 languages, and The Optimum Nutrition Bible sat on an awful lot of Irish shelves.
He's also one of the most argued-about figures in the field. Depending on who you ask, he either dragged zinc, essential fats and the B vitamins into public conversation decades before the mainstream got there, or he has a long habit of pushing evidence further than it goes. Both camps have a point, and I'm not going to pretend to settle it here.
What's worth doing is setting out what he actually argues, because four of his core ideas come up constantly in the questions we get - and some hold up better than others.
Optimum nutrition: RDAs as a floor, not a target
This is the foundation everything else sits on. Holford founded the Institute for Optimum Nutrition in London in 1984, with Linus Pauling as its patron, and the central claim has never really changed: Recommended Daily Allowances were set to stop you getting scurvy or rickets. They're a floor. They were never designed as a target for someone who wants to feel well. Interesting, in light of what's currently going on in Europe *ahem*..
In their place he proposes Optimum Daily Allowances - so, higher intakes aimed at function rather than the absence of deficiency. Underneath that sit two further arguments: that nutrient needs vary genuinely between people depending on age, genetics and stress, and that vitamins and minerals work better together than in isolation.
Here's where I'll be straight with you. There's no consensus that ODA-level intakes do anything beyond correcting a real shortfall, and mainstream dietetics is food-first for fairly good reasons. But the principle that one number can't sensibly apply to everybody isn't fringe thinking at all. As I mentioned, anyone who's read what I've written about the EU's proposed maximum limits knows my view on this - a vitamin D figure calibrated across a continent means something very different in Galway than it does in Seville. Holford was making that argument about individual variation long before Brussels made it a live issue.
The practical version: real food first, and if you do supplement, something broad-spectrum rather than six single nutrients bought at random. The Onnit Total Human day and night packs are the most complete version of that idea we stock, and Nu Mind Stress & Anxiety Relief is the one I'd point at otherwise - it's sold for stress, but underneath it's a full B-complex with folate as methylfolate and B12 as methylcobalamin, plus D3, C, zinc and magnesium bisglycinate.
Blood sugar, and the low-GL argument
If one Holford idea escaped the nutrition world entirely, it's this one. He's been pushing the low-GL approach for years, where GL means glycaemic load - how fast a food raises blood glucose combined with how much carbohydrate is actually in the portion you eat.
The argument is simple enough. Fast-releasing carbs spike glucose, insulin follows, and the peaks and troughs drive the energy dips and cravings that most people just accept as normal. His fix isn't cutting carbohydrate out. It's choosing slower ones and never eating them naked - always with protein or fat alongside.
This is the most food-led thing he teaches and honestly the section where supplements matter least. Whole grains instead of white. Whole fruit instead of juice. Protein at breakfast rather than toast on its own. Adding hemp protein to porridge costs you nothing and fixes the meal most people get wrong. And that's whether you need to actually be eating that meal at all... *sniggers to himself* . Anyway, I digress..
Berberine is what everyone asks about here, and it's fair to say it's where a lot of current research attention is pointed. It's also a live regulatory question - EFSA opened a public consultation on berberine's status this year - so I'm not going to tell you what it will do for you. We stock Berberine with Resveratrol, it's one of our steadier sellers, and I've written up the longer version of that conversation separately in Berberine vs GLP-1 medications.
The brain: omega-3 and the homocysteine question
Like myself, Holford trained in psychology before he came to nutrition, and it shows - brain health is where he's spent most of his career. He later set up the Food for the Brain Foundation, and he was early to two things now discussed everywhere: omega-3 fats and the B vitamins involved in homocysteine metabolism.
His argument, and this is the part worth taking seriously, is that the two aren't separate. DHA is a structural component of brain tissue. Homocysteine, an amino acid in the blood, is processed with the help of B6, B12 and folate. Holford's consistent line is that these systems depend on each other, and that addressing one while ignoring the other is a mistake.
Practically: oily fish a few times a week, and pay attention to B vitamin status if you eat little animal food or you're past fifty. If you're supplementing, Max DHA krill oil delivers DHA in phospholipid form, and DHA contributes to the maintenance of normal brain function at 250 mg a day. On the B side, Feel Supreme's B Complex covers all eight - B6, B12 and folate contribute to normal homocysteine metabolism, and the group as a whole contributes to normal energy-yielding metabolism. There's more in the Powerful Mind range if you want to go deeper.
Vitamin C, zinc, and the dosing argument
Consistent with everything above, Holford has argued for vitamin C well above the RDA for decades, and he was on zinc long before it was fashionable.
The underlying nutrition here is less contested than the dosing debate wrapped around it. Both nutrients have well-established roles in immune function, neither is stored well, and both get depleted. Where Holford parts company with the official line is his view that RDA-level amounts in a standard multivitamin are too low to be worth taking.
Food first again: peppers, citrus, berries and brassicas for C, shellfish, meat, seeds and legumes for zinc. Where a supplement earns its place is as top-up through an Irish winter, and Zinc with Vitamin C is a neat illustration of the whole ODA idea in a single tablet - it sits at 200% and 125% RDA respectively. Vitamin C and zinc each contribute to the normal function of the immune system. More options in the immune range.
The bottom line
Holford's influence on nutritional therapy in Britain and Ireland is hard to argue with. He built the institution that trained the profession, and several nutrients he was shouting about thirty years ago are now standard reading. It's equally fair to say some of his stronger claims have taken sustained criticism, and that optimum-level intakes over RDA-level intakes is not settled science.
I'd read him as a set of good questions rather than a set of answers. Is your diet built on actual food? Are your meals balanced for blood sugar, or are you riding the peaks and troughs? Are you getting omega-3 and B vitamins from anywhere at all? Those hold up regardless of where you land on the noisier parts of his work.
This article is for educational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Always consult your GP or another qualified healthcare professional before making significant changes to your diet or supplement routine.